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On this week's Your Rights At Work show: SF Mime Troupe’s “Tales of the Resistance”Latest labor news updates, including what’s happening with the proposed East End Hospital and the NLRB says the boss can search your car! Plus: Tales of the Resistance, an original radio serial from the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Today’s episode: JADE, FOR HIRE! Looking for work during a race and class war ain’t easy, But why was "Derrick" fired in the first place? And what is the secret of...Jamazon.com?
Coalition notches DC budget wins
The DC City Council’s first vote on the DC 2021 budget on Tuesday included $9 million for Excluded Workers, thanks to a hard-fought campaign by a powerful, multi-racial, multi-lingual, international coalition of unions, immigrant organizations, service providers, sex workers, returning citizens, congregations and more. “For the first time (we) won DC-funded cash assistance to those locked out of unemployment and federal stimulus,” reports DC Jobs with Justice Executive Director Elizabeth Falcon. The city’s budget affects the lives of over 700,000 DC residents, and “this year, we are in the midst of the COVID pandemic and its economic impact as well as an uprising against White supremacy and for Black life,” said Falcon. “The decisions made in the budget have immense weight on the lives, health, livelihood, and housing security of DC families. And the weight of using the budget as a tool for racial equity is even more urgent.” While the vote fell short of the coalition’s goal of $30M, “we are proud that DC will put funds in the hands of DC residents that the federal government has abandoned during the crisis,” said Falcon, crediting Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, and Councilmembers Nadeau and Allen for leading efforts to commit the funds.
Amalgamated Foundation grant “right on time" for hard-hit area workers
As businesses slowly re-open throughout the region, workers are not only bearing much of the economic brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, but will likely continue to struggle for months to come. That struggle will be eased somewhat by a $10,000 grant from the Amalgamated Foundation to the Metro Washington Council’s Community Services Agency. "Food and housing insecurity are major problems for local workers who are laid off and ineligible for unemployment." said CSA Executive Director Sonte DuCote. "This generous grant is right on time," she added. “The Amalgamated Foundation is proud to contribute to the COVID-19 response efforts of the Metro Council’s Community Services Agency,” said Anna Fink, executive director of the Foundation. “Amalgamated Bank and Amalgamated Foundation are proud of our legacy rooted in the labor movement working on behalf of union members across the country, including this opportunity to provide resources to frontline workers. We believe that workers on the frontline are what is holding our country together right now and they deserve our strongest support.” The grant to CSA was part of an $85,000 first round of donations through Amalgamated’s Frontline Workers Fund.
Click here for details from CSA on how to help workers facing hunger or eviction due to COVID.
Today's Labor Quote: Sidney Hillman
“We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty.”
Hillman, who died on this date in 1946, led the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and was a close advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: 2020 Great Labor Arts Exchange contest winners!. Plus, Joe Glazer’s "Solidarity Forever" from the Songs of Work and Freedom album, and the Meany Archives gang brings us the July 4th, 1964 issue of the AFL CIO news, which featured the signing of the Civil Rights Act and Ben and Allen tie that into the ongoing protests for social justice.
Last week’s show: Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth.
July 10
Mary McLeod Bethune, educator and civil rights activist, born - 1875 (Note: there is a statue honoring Mary McCleod Bethune in Lincoln Park, directly opposite the Lincoln Emancipation statue)
14,000 federal and state troops finally succeed in putting down the strike against the Pullman Palace Car Co., which had been peaceful until July 5, when federal troops intervened in Chicago, against the repeated protests of the Governor and Chicago’s mayor. Some 34 American Railway Union members were killed by troops over the course of the strike - 1894
A powerful explosion rips through the Rolling Mill coal mine in Johnstown, Pa., killing 112 miners, 83 of whom were immigrants from Poland and Slovakia - 1902
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce holds a mass meeting of more than 2,000 merchants to organize what was to become a frontal assault on union strength and the closed shop. The failure of wages to keep up with inflation after the 1906 earthquake had spurred multiple strikes in the city - 1916
July 11
Striking coal miners in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho dynamite barracks housing Pinkerton management thugs - 1892
A nine-year strike, the longest in the history of the United Auto Workers, began at the Ohio Crankshaft Division of Park-Ohio Industries Inc. in Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio. Despite scabs, arrests and firings, UAW Local 91 members hung tough and in 1992 won a fair contract - 1983
July 12
Bisbee, Ariz. deports Wobblies; 1,186 miners sent into desert in manure-laden boxcars. They had been fighting for improved safety and working conditions - 1917
The Screen Actors Guild holds its first meeting. Among those attending: future horror movie star (Frankenstein’s Monster) and union activist Boris Karloff - 1933
- David Prosten
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